Tag: current affairs – international

Tom Engelhardt: The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire Or What It Means to Fall on a Failing Planet

As in Election Campaign 2016, Donald Trump isn’t the cause but a symptom (though what a symptom!) of an American world going down. Then as now, he somehow gathered into his one-and-only self so many of the worst impulses of a country that, in this century, found itself eternally at war not just with Afghans… Read More Tom Engelhardt: The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire Or What It Means to Fall on a Failing Planet

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Silvia Marchetti – South Tyrol identity crisis: to live in Italy, but feel Austrian

They’re Italian citizens but simply don’t feel Italian. Bolzano’s local authorities estimate that German is spoken by 75% of the 510,000 inhabitants of the Alto Adige region. Locals, however, call it by its original name – South Tyrol – and many wish it were independent. Eva Klotz is a co-founder of the separatist party Süd-Tiroler Freiheit (South… Read More Silvia Marchetti – South Tyrol identity crisis: to live in Italy, but feel Austrian

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Robert B Reich : Beware going 'back to normal' thoughts – normal gave us Trump

Life is going to return to normal,” Joe Biden promised on Thursday in a Thanksgiving address to the nation. He was talking about life after Covid-19, but you could be forgiven if you thought he was also making a promise about life after Trump. It is almost impossible to separate the two. To the extent voters gave… Read More Robert B Reich : Beware going 'back to normal' thoughts – normal gave us Trump

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Amanda Marcotte: Trump's lasting legacy: The right's open embrace of terrorism / Epidemiologist warns of “contagion” of violent speech coming “from the White House” / Damon Linker: America is buckling

Amanda Marcotte: Trump leaves a lasting legacy: The right’s open embrace of terrorism   In any sensible society, Kyle Rittenhouse would be shunned across the political spectrum. The 17-year-old Illinois resident stands accused of shooting three people, killing two of them, during an August Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Whatever the specific facts of that incident, the… Read More Amanda Marcotte: Trump's lasting legacy: The right's open embrace of terrorism / Epidemiologist warns of “contagion” of violent speech coming “from the White House” / Damon Linker: America is buckling

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The President of the USA is trying to rig the election in order to prove the election was rigged

Robert Reich: America is being subjected to a stress test – and Republicans are failing  America is being subjected to a stress test to see if it has enough strength to withstand Donald Trump’s treacherous campaign to discredit the 2020 presidential election. Trump will lose because there’s no evidence of fraud. But the integrity of… Read More The President of the USA is trying to rig the election in order to prove the election was rigged

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Oliver Milman – A youth group helped Biden win. Now they want him to fix climate crisis

Joe Biden will have to navigate a path for the most ambitious climate agenda ever adopted by a US president through not only stubborn Republican obstruction but also an emergent youth climate movement that is already formulating plans to hold him to account. A record turnout of young voters, a cohort riven by anxiety over… Read More Oliver Milman – A youth group helped Biden win. Now they want him to fix climate crisis

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George Monbiot: The US was lucky to get Trump, Biden may pave the way for a more competent autocrat / Zeynep Tufekci: America’s Next Authoritarian Will Be More Competent

Neoliberalism has been neatly described… as the disenchantment of politics by economics. It sees politics as an ineffective or illegitimate means of social improvement. Decision-making should be transferred to “the market”, a euphemism for the power of money. Through buying and selling, we establish a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Any attempt to interfere… Read More George Monbiot: The US was lucky to get Trump, Biden may pave the way for a more competent autocrat / Zeynep Tufekci: America’s Next Authoritarian Will Be More Competent

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Ben Ehrenreich: How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart? Meet the scholars who study civilizational collapse

When I first spoke with Joseph Tainter in early May, he and I and nearly everyone else had reason to be worried. A few days earlier, the official tally of Covid-19 infections in the United States had climbed above one million, unemployment claims had topped 30 million and the United Nations had warned that the… Read More Ben Ehrenreich: How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart? Meet the scholars who study civilizational collapse

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